


The hand that paused to gather

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [21]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Awkward Romance, F/M, Slow Romance, but some lines get changed, deep pov, the rose conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 11:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18475384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Caitwyn's hiding in a tree, but Alistair is determined to express his feelings.It goes better than expected.Not quite a total re-hash of The Rose conversation; Deep Tabris POV





	The hand that paused to gather

At the clomp and crash of a heavy tread through the undergrowth, Caitwyn pressed herself closer to the bark of the tree on instinct.  To make herself smaller, to try to go unnoticed in the darkness. To hide. Her feet dangled over the edge of the branch and she debated drawing them up and concealing herself entirely.  But she knew that step, and if the ungraceful clatter and muttered  _ bloody thorns _ didn’t give away who had come after her, the radiating warmth of her fellow Warden certainly did.  

Picking at the rough bark with her fingers, Caitwyn delayed her choice for a moment too long and was spotted.  Alistair’s face peered up at her, that crooked smile curving his mouth even as his brows furrowed in concern or confusion or both.  The sun had set, though a band of orange and red clung to the horizon, the spreading canopy of the trees made the starlight little and less to see by.  But that mattered little to  _ her _ eyes, eyes that glinted in the dark.  She wondered what he saw when he looked into her eyes.  Certainly no way to see her as anything other than what she was.  

“You alright?”  His voice, normally bouncing and jangling with a jape—often at his own expense—was soft.  Gentle. The world lacked its full color at night, but she had a recent memory of his hazel eyes lit by a setting sun.  Those gentle eyes. She let her head rest against the trunk of the tree once more, even though the bark picked and pulled at her hair.  

“Why you ask that?”  Clipped tones, a challenge.  As if she were offended for him to think she were anything  _ less _ than alright.  Even if she was less than alright.  Perhaps she always was, but that was no reason to let anyone know the full extent of it.  If they only repaid her honesty with thoughtlessness. Instead of slinking away, he cocked his head and rocked back on his heels, as though it was perfectly obvious why he asked.  She frowned, finally noticing how he held his hands behind him, something a little  _ too _ innocent in the way he stood in addition to the nervous working of his shoulders.

Undeterred by challenge or frown, Alistair spoke, “You’ve climbed something.  You tend to do that when you feel—when you need to think. Doesn’t matter what, inns, castles, poor innocent trees.”

Caitwyn’s face remained impassive, but her idle hands flicked a chunk of bark off the tree.  Did he  _ see _ , she wondered, did he  _ understand _ ?  No, he couldn’t.  And yet, he wasn’t wrong, and his unexpected insight was like a splinter in her finger.  Irritating, needing to be dug out.

“How do you know if this tree is innocent?” she asked sharply, reverting to her native patter without meaning to.  He laughed, and his presence turned from the comfort of a well-tended hearth to the warmth of the sun on a perfect summer day.  The kind of day that had no shadows or chill, no darkness and no sorrow. Days she had left behind with the bloody tatters of her childhood.

"You’re right.  We should keep an eye on it, in case it does something suspicious.  Might want to come down, though, if its a bad tree. Probably isn’t safe.”  He shot a glare at the tree, as if it were about to do something as mad as walk around and commit violence.  The corners of her mouth twitched, threatening a grin, but she bit the inside of her cheek to prevent her face from disobeying her.  

So what if he knew that she wore masks, and that he had it from her own lips no less.  She blamed the close confines of the tavern and the beer Bella had pressed into her hands for that lapse.  Just because he knew the masks were there didn’t mean he knew what was underneath them. Didn’t know that when he was near her control, her masks, slipped and tumbled in her grasp.  Didn’t know that she wanted to drink in the sight of him, the line of his long nose or the exposed hollow of his throat. Didn’t know that in spite of how she had thought those flutters in her chest dead, they came back to life with a vengeance, battering from the inside of her chest so hard it hurt. 

“And uh, getting a bit of a crick in my neck, truth to tell.”  He rolled his head around in a show of poor-me agony, and then she did allow herself a grin.  A knife’s grin, white and brief in the night.

“Now you know how  _ I _ feel, having to stare up at you bloody giants.  No, think I’ll stay where I am.” This was better.  Easier. Like before that bloody, stupid haircut. Before when she had been able to poke him in the side and think not a thing of it, when he had joked and smiled and she didn’t think before laughing.  

“Oh, well, I guess I’ll just have to…” he said, but more to himself, she thought.  He shuffled closer, pausing only briefly to kick away a strand of thorns off from his leg.  A kick, a hop, a determined step, and he was directly in front of her, if five feet below her perch, one long arm holding up a flower for her.  “Here, look at this. Do you know what this is?”

She looked down at the offering, then back at his hopeful face and repeated that process a few times while she tried to figure out if he was pulling her leg, asking her that question.  Perhaps this was another joke, if an obscure one. Although she had grown up in Denerim and her exposure to gardens was mainly the produce that came from them, she did know a rose when she saw one.

“Is that a trick question?”  The flower stayed in front of her, an offering of a sorts, and she took it, mindful of its thorns.  He cleared his throat and drew in a breath that made his shoulders rise and square. 

“Yes, absolutely, I’m trying to trick you.  Is it working? Aw, I just about had you, didn’t I?” he joked.  Caitwyn regarded the rose once more, the wheels in her head turning and clicking, recalling scenes that had played out as she’d watched from her childhood rooftop perches: a young man counting out pennies to buy a flower for the lass the next street over, an older man bringing home a full bouquet to his wife, women holding roses to their faces and sighing in gardens.  Her head shot up and understanding unfurled like a flag in her mind, snapping and wiping in a breeze that mocked her.

Her breathing turned shallow, tiny little gasps of air that held a silent  _ no, no, no, he can’t mean _ —to stop entirely as he shyly watched her from underneath his lashes.  From this vantage, there was no mistaking the flaming red of his ears, even muted as it was in the paltry starlight.  Another understanding slammed into her, taking in all the little details she had missed while she had been wrapped up in her own thoughts: he was as unsure as she was.  

Unable to find her way to a jape of her own and her surprise making evasion impossible, she only had the truth left to her.  “You’ve been thumbing that flower for a while now.”

“I picked it in Lothering.  I remember thinking how could something so beautiful exist in a place with so much despair and ugliness?  I probably should have left it alone, but I couldn’t.” His gaze dropped back to the rose in her hands, and the humor of moments ago evaporated like water on a hot day leaving only his gentleness behind.   “The darkspawn would have come, and their taint would just destroy it. So, I’ve had it ever since.”

“That’s a sweet thought.”  She, however, could not take her eyes off him.  As she held the stem with a more secure grip she let the last of the ice bleed out of her, let her wariness melt in the light of Alistair’s own nerves, let herself turn toward his warmth.

“I thought that I might give it you, actually.  In a lot of ways, I think the same things when I look at you.”  He raised his eyes to hers, only to find her gaze already fixed on him.  The apple of his throat bobbed uncertainly as he searched her face.

“I… I don’t know what to say.”  The words were halting, but true because she had no idea how to respond.  She’d only  _ seen _ humans courting, never heard them.  Never cared to pay attention for one thing, or get that close for another.  In the bustle and whirl of Denerim, there had been other things on her mind than learning how to graciously receive flowers.  And  _ thank you _ would not be correct.  Or enough.

"I guess it's a bit silly, isn't it?”  His shoulders relaxed a fraction and he leaned one-handed against the tree though he did not takes his eyes off of her.  And for once, such open scrutiny did not batter against her like an unwelcome guest. His gaze did not demand, did not pressure, but did only softly implore.

“I just thought, here I am doing all this complaining, and you haven't exactly been having a good time of it, yourself.  You've had none of the good experience of being a Grey Warden since your Joining. Not a word of thanks or congratulations.  It's all been death and fighting and tragedy. I thought maybe I could say something. Tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find amidst all this…darkness,” he said earnestly, his whole heart in those words. 

_ Rare and wonderful _ .  

Her heart fluttered to a complete stop in her chest.  She nearly closed her hand tight around the stem of the rose before the prick of thorns on her fingers reminded her of their danger.  There was an unvoiced question in his declaration, and her gaze dropped back to the rose. She traced the edge of one soft petal, still in the full blush of life against all reason.  Her own face flushed with warmth which ran up her ears, her complexion and the darkness of the evening hiding her blush.

Taking courage in the fact that she could see more of him than he could of her, she lifted her chin and made herself look at him.  Nothing in her life had prepared her for this, and she licked her lips in an unusual betrayal of nerves.

“No, I… I mean, I really don’t know what to say.  No one’s ever given me a flower before.” And she didn’t want to say the wrong thing, the thing that would hurt him and send him away.  Would send away the warmth and light that he brought with him even into the darkest places. The goodness of him that would rather be a little bit weak than steel his heart to the suffering of others.

“Really?  I find that hard to believe,” he said, unable to mask the bitter note of hurt in his tone.  Pushing off the tree trunk, he stood up straight and raised one eyebrow in suspicion. He scuffed his boots through the undergrowth, cracking dry twigs apart with a snap that shattered the moment.  And her hesitation. He was about to  _ go away _ .  Go away, taking his warmth and light with him, and leave her in the darkness.  Alone. 

“Really!”  She leaned forward, nearly sliding off the branch, and he stepped forward as if to catch her from a fall.  She shifted her weight and regained her perch, holding his eyes all the while with her own. Trying to make her face let him  _ see _ , to not be the mask that had become its habit.  From the frozen fear of being unseen, unheard,  _ just another elf _ , she was swept away by a sudden deluge of courage.  As if the words broke from her like debris from a river in flood, she found an answer for him and it poured forth between gasps of her quickening breath.  “My people don’t… we don’t do  _ this _ .  Or at least  _ I _ didn’t.  I’m related to a good third of the Alienage, I’ll have you know.  That’s why we have arranged matches. No one goes  _ courting _ like this.  Some do, or try, but I didn’t.  And you  _ surprised _ me.”

His mouth formed a silent, embarrassed  _ oh _ of realization.

“And… you said, you said I was rare and wonderful, in the middle of this mess, and I think, I mean, I do think the same things about you.”

_ Hope for a gentle man, little shadow _ , her mother’s voice whispered across the years and the veil of death.  How rare was a man with a heart so gentle. How wonderful was the person who warmed the world by simply being in it.

In the darkness of the evening, under the rustling leaves of summer-green trees, Caitwyn and Alistair gazed each other, both having said more than they had thought to dare.  Insects buzzed and the fireflies began to glow in reflection of the stars above. A smile bloomed across his face, and its reflection appeared on her own. In her hands was a rose that was more than a rose, and for the moment a hundred, a thousand objections and practicalities fell silent.  

Then he coughed, the moment stretching too long, and his whole face going red.  “Oh good, I mean I’m glad you like it. Now, if we could move right on past this awkward and embarrassing stage and get right to the steamy bits, I'd appreciate it.”

She rolled her eyes, but held the rose closer still.  “And you were doing so well, too.”

For a wonder, the suggestion of  _ steamy bits _ , didn’t make her want to flee.  Leliana had called elves  _ pleasing to look at _ .  To Wynne whatever tragedy had driven her to the Warden’s was necessary.  They didn’t see  _ her _ .  But he did.  He  _ saw _ her.  For  _ herself _ .  Suddenly her attempts to put distance between them came into focus.  Afraid of being seen and rejected for the darkness inside of her, she had tried to reject him first.  A foolishness that had nearly cost her this. Whatever it was, because it was not the simple friendship she had thought.

“Yes, I’ll be standing over here, until the blushing stops.  Just to be… safe. You know how it is,” he said, sidling away, eyes casting about for some kind of rescue, but none was forthcoming.  “I’ll just… I’ll collect firewood. You… probably should head back.”

“Right, good idea,” she agreed.  Scrambling down from the tree like a squirrel, she pondered what she should do now.  Embrace him? Try to hold his hand? It was all so uncertain, unclear, and she needed time to think the rest of this through.  Yet she lingered, contemplating his back as he stooped to collect firewood they didn’t need. There had to be something more. Just a little something more, and she spoke, her voice carried only by the barest of evening breeze, “Good night, Alistair.”

He jerked upright, holding the twigs and tinder in a death grip, and he spoke in a voice as hushed as though what he said contained more than the words themselves, “Good night, Caitwyn.”

She took one step backwards, then another, and on silent feet she circled around the camp to crawl into her tent while avoiding any possibly curious gazes.  Maethor snuffled into the tent not long after, and he sniffed curiously at the rose. 

“It’s from Alistair,” she told her dog.  He opened his mouth as if to eat it, and she snatched it away from his jaws and clutched it to her chest.  “Oi! No, it’s not for  _ eating _ .  It’s… it’s for  _ having _ , you silly creature.”  She’d never had anything for the sake of having it before.  All the things she had were practical, useful. A rose such as this had no use save to simply be.  And it was hers. Maethor cocked his head and then sneezed, pronouncing his stance of the matter. He flopped down on the blankets they cuddled on together and waited for her to do whatever silly person thing she was about.  

Keeping it safe and intact was suddenly a paramount concern, and Caitwyn upended her back and all her extra gear, the books, and whatever useful bits and bobs she had scrounged for traps tumbled out.  She had always packed carefully, but now she arranged all she owned in the world so that a single rose would sit safe and secure on top. Then she closed her pack. But with the pack closed she couldn’t make sure the rose was still there, and she opened it again.  

Settling down on her blankets, the warm bulk of Maethor at her back, she tried to make herself sleep.  She should have been exhausted, but excited flutters flared up just as she closed her eyes and whirling, rain-drop light thoughts circled around in her head.  What did they do next? What steps did people take when they were courting? Some options she discarded immediately, while others she tried to set aside for examination later.  

Was he thinking these same things, she wondered?  Or did he have some plan? In the dark of her tent, she grinned, knowing he probably didn’t.  There was a comfort there, in that he seemed just as new to this as she was. Eventually, her eyelids were too heavy and she gave into slumber, carried away on the scent of a still blooming rose.


End file.
